


Hold Me

by Androids_in_Metropolis



Category: Palo Alto (2013)
Genre: Angst, Child Neglect, Drugs, Familial Love, Fluff, Gen, Implied abuse, M/M, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, teddy/fred fluff and love and kisses, underage dirnking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-25
Updated: 2015-09-25
Packaged: 2018-04-23 06:58:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4867442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Androids_in_Metropolis/pseuds/Androids_in_Metropolis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Teddy's mother wants to be his mother again after she let him grow up too quickly. Teddy needs her, and Fred needs him. In the end, they all get what they need. </p><p>(Crappy summary, I know. I'm sorry.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hold Me

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, this is a long one, and a little out of my usual style. I hope you like it :)

Teddy lit the cigarette that hung from his trembling lips, his eyes finally closing as he breathed in the toxic smoke, coming to a shuddering, relaxing hault. It was past midnight, and he had school the next day. He was exhausted, but he couldn’t sleep. His mind kept him awake, darting between problems and solutions. He thought too much. He wished he had some pills; He just wanted to sleep. He wanted to stop thinking, to stop worry. He wished Fred would call, tell him he was okay. 

Fred never called first. 

Teddy had tried calling him, after the party, after the talk with Skull. Fred hadn’t picked up. He had called him again, and again; No answer. When Fred wanted to shut people out, he did it with his whole heart. Teddy knew that even if his friend was alive and well he wouldn’t be answering calls that night, and the best he could do was go to sleep and hope he’d be there in the morning. 

He was so busy unwinding, breathing in the smoke and blowing it out again (a constant life/death cycle) that he missed the sound of the screen door opening and his mother clad in her pajamas walking out into the yard. He didn’t notice her until she was basically on top of him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and pulling him to her just as she had when he was younger. When he was more innocent, before everything had fallen in and then out of his control. 

“Why aren’t you asleep?” She whispered, not letting him out of her tight embrace. “It’s late,” she observed. She worried about it, all the time, in fact. She was always wondering what she had done wrong, or what she could do to make it better. She knew Teddy was hurting, and it hurt that he wouldn’t tell her why. 

“No reason,” he tried, but corrected himself a moment later, trying so hard to be the son he knew she deserved. “Just worried, I guess.” He took the cigarette back in his mouth, blowing the smoke over her shoulder. He could see the street lights starting to flicker-They did that late at night. 

“About what?” his mother asked, pulling away slightly so she could look him in the face, fighting the urge to snatch the ciggeret from his shaking hands and put it out under the soul of her foot. This was her baby, her baby giving himself lung cancer just to stop the shaking. She wanted to take him inside and never let him out again, never let him in danger again. She wanted to wrap him up and keep him safe, same as she still could for his little sister. 

It doesn’t work that way once you’ve already let them grow up. 

“Fred,” Teddy admitted, his eyes traveling down towards his bare feet. He wished he could sit down; God, he was so tired. The night seemed to be going on forever. Sometimes the simple act of going through the motions of sleep was too hard, too much to bare, no matter how badly he wanted it. He knew tonight would be another sleepless night, and the next day another foggy day. “He...He was at a party, and Em-his ex-girlfriend-they got in a fight. She hit him in the head, he was bleeding. I didn’t do anything though, when he said he wanted to go out, so we drove over to the garage and hung out there. He had a knife...he was shaking. I didn’t do anything,” Teddy repeated, shaking badly now. He leaned against the wall of the house, sinking into a sitting position at his mother’s feet. 

He hadn’t tried to calm him down. He hadn’t stopped him from driving away. 

Before he understood what was happening he was crying. It wasn’t the pretty kind of resigned cry, but the shuddering ‘I could have helped’ cry. His chest was heaving, his lungs protesting the sudden exertion of his expanding and contracting ribs. The cigarette was on the ground, forgotten. 

His mother got down on her knees, wrapping her son up in her arms and holding him close. She was sorry; She was sorry that she hadn’t known he was at a party, and sorry she hadn’t kept Fred away from him, and sorry that she hadn’t prepared him for the world, and sorry that now that he did love Fred she would have to help him find out if his friend was alive or not on a cool autumn night. 

“Come on in,” she mumbled, kissing the top of his blond head after he had cried himself hoarse. “I’ll call around, we’ll find out where he is,” she assured him, helping Teddy to his feet and wrapping an arm around his shoulder as she guided him inside. 

She had promised herself that she was going to get through this with Teddy. She had promised herself they would work all his angst out, work out why he did what he did, become close again like they had been when he was younger. She had told herself she would be there for him, weather it be holding his increasingly lengthy hair out of his face when he was hung-over, scolding him for it later, or helping him work out his friendships and talking about cause and effect. 

Teddy let himself be young again, clinging to his mother and holding her close; He was as tall as she was now. When had that happened? He had missed getting older-One day he had just been. 

His mother was digging around, boiling water, handing a hot chocolate. He took it, quickly putting it down as his hands refused to cooperate with his mind; Why was he shaking? Was he just tired, or was it the worrying or the stress? He didn’t know. 

The phone rang. 

He grabbed it, the colour draining from his face as he listened. His mother stood by, waiting for him to finish, waiting to know what had happened that left her son so tired looking, so sick. He was shaking all over, his knuckles white with the effort of holding the phone steady, his eyes closed. 

 

“He’s at the lake. I’m going to go get him,” Teddy said, dropping the phone, not putting it back on the cradle, glad for the cord that held it taut as it fell towards the floor. He was already moving, grabbing his car keys and his jacket as he jammed his feet into his shoes, halfway out the door before his mother grabbed his shoulder, stopping him cold. “I gotta go get him,” he said, his voice pleading, his eyes still puffy and red from his cry. 

“I know, just, let me drive,” she said, her voice resigned. She had to accept it, that much as she didn’t like it, Fred was now a part of their lives, both of them. His and hers. She stood for a moment, making sure he wouldn’t leave before she grabbed her own shoes, heading out the door with him. 

The drive towards the lake was silent, though it wasn’t for lack of thought; Thoughts were whizzing through both their minds, too fast to grab hold of and say out loud. Teddy was wondering what had happened, why Fred was calling. He wondered why he hadn’t called earlier. 

His mother was working through her feelings; Wondering how she could adjust to Fred being a part of their lives. Wondering how she could rain Teddy in without becoming the same over protective woman her ex-husband had divorced. 

Teddy called to her as he saw Fred’s slouched form at a bus stop along the lake shore. There was a cigarette hanging from his lips, much as there had been for Teddy, and he was still holding the kitchen knife, though it was held limply; It could slip from his fingers at any moment. He didn’t look up as the car pulled up or as Teddy jumped out, running towards his friend, wrapping his arms around him and holding him tightly. 

“Are you okay?” Teddy asked, repeating the question his mother asked him nearly every day. He knew people didn’t ask Fred that question; His dad didn’t care to know. He looked over his friend, finding the head wound, still open and bleeding. He saw a scratch that ran over one of Fred’s collar bones-It looked pretty deep. Teddy wondered where it was from. 

Fred was shaking, wrapping his arms around Teddy’s waist. He wasn’t okay, he wasn’t okay at all. He didn’t know why, but everything was crashing down. Sometimes this happened, but now he had someone to call. Sometimes nothing was worth it, he was just too tired...so tired. 

“No,” he whimpered, closing his eyes against the tears that were insisting on spilling out from under his eyelids, staining Teddy’s white t-shirt. “I’m not, not okay.” 

Teddy ran his hand through Fred’s blood soaked hair, working away at the tangled curls. He was rocking gently back and forth, bent over his friend, one hand holding onto his shoulder. He was making a ‘shh’ noise. He surprised himself, getting to his knees, kissing his friend softly on the lips. 

His mother watched from the car, not sure what was going on, but a little more than shocked when she saw her son pressing his lips against Fred’s. Teddy was so gentle with Fred; A gentleness she hadn’t seen in him since he was very young, and afraid of strangers. His hands seemed to find all the right places on Fred’s shaking form to calm him down, falling into a hug with the young rebel. She climbed out of the car. 

“Come on, boys,” she called into the wind. It was getting colder, the smell of rain on the air. She wanted to make sure Fred was alright, and get them home. Her eyes grew big as she saw the knife Teddy had taken from Fred, her eyes traveling over the blood and water soaked teen. He was a mess. 

Teddy helped Fred into the back seat, climbing in after him, holding his hand. His mother didn’t miss the glance he gave his friend; It was one she knew. She thought that maybe she understood now why Teddy had been so attached to fred for no reason she could find. Maybe, maybe he was in love. She started the engine. 

“Does he need stitches?” she asked, looking at the two boy’s through the rear-view mirror. Fred had curled up against Teddy, shivering, his eyes shut tightly against even the faintest of light that came from outside the car. He looked like a child right then, not like the dangerously angry teen she had grown accustomed to against her will. 

“No, I don’t think so,” Teddy replied, looking over Fred’s wounds. He quickly wriggled out of his now blood stained t-shirt, pressing it against Fred’s forehead, above his eyebrow, where the cut seemed to be. He cleane away some of the blood, trying to get a better look; it was pretty deep. “Maybe? Yeah, we should take him to the hospital,” Teddy amended, pressing his shirt to the other’s head and applying pressure. 

His mother nodded, turning towards the district hospital. 

\------------------------------------------

Fred came home with Teddy and his mother, sleeping with his friend in his bed. Teddy finally fell asleep with Fred beside him, and for the first time in a long time, didn’t wake up shaking and screaming, unable to fall back into blissful oblivion. His mother watched them from the doorway, fighting back tears. Teddy had grown up-He wasn’t a baby any more. He wasn’t her baby anymore. She fought the urge to cry and smile at the same time when she saw Fred wrap an arm protectively around Teddy’s middle, watched Teddy turn towards him in his sleep and let him hold him like he hardly ever let her hold him any more. 

The next day the two slept through school, only waking around four in the afternoon. Teddy wrapped his arms around Fred, letting him cry. This wasn’t how he had thought their friendship would play out, he thought it would be one complicated lie after another, only letting pieces of the truth seep out around the edges, but here they were, giving truths that hurt so bad to give. 

Fred cried because he knew he had been a jerk, and because Emily hadn’t loved him, and because he wasn’t sure he had ever loved anyone like he loved Teddy-Unsure of if he’d ever loved at all. Now here was Teddy telling him he loved him, telling him he would be okay. No one had ever done that for him before. No one had ever cared to try and find out what was wrong, never tried to make him feel better. No one had ever tried to fill the ever growing hole in his chest that hurt, that he could feel his breath escaping from. 

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Teddy whispered, petting Fred’s chemically cleaned hair (the hospital had insisted). He missed his mother standing in the doorway, the phone in her hand, looking at them with a mixture of pride and sadness. “You’re okay,” he told Fred, forcing his friend to look up at him, pressing a light kiss to his forehead, just below the stitches. “I love you. You don’t have to go back home. We’ll start again, okay, okay.” He was reassuring himself as much as he was Fred. he didn’t want to see him in pain any more, the hot mess he had been since they had met, only now and then letting little glimpses of his true self show. 

Fred kissed him back, momentarily forgetting why he was so hurt. He was hurt because no one had ever treated him like Teddy had before, and he had almost pushed him away. He was crying because everything Teddy said clashed so badly with the reality of things; going home, it’s okay, i love you. He kissed him because he liked him and he was too hurt to fight it any more; If his dad or God or the playground bullies from high school had something to say about it, they could go to hell. He was sick of giving a shit. 

\-----------------------------------

Fred moved in with Fred’s family. His dad was under investigation. He was in therapy; He was telling Teddy about how he felt, what he did, what his dad had been like. They held whispered conversations on the couch late at night when neither of them could sleep, sometimes with Teddy’s mother. A house filled with insomniacts. 

He was doing well. He stopped drinking, he had never been addicted to it in the first place, only doing it because he liked the place it got him. When he was drunk he didn’t have to deal with his dad, or his friends, or Emily, or how he felt (or didn’t feel) about her. He could push it all away. Now that he had help thinking through all that, had someone who made him feel how Emily never did.

He stopped the drugs; He had mostly had them because his dad had them, and he had been used to the smoke, finding it almost comforting. When his dad had been high he hadn’t bothered to be angry or disappointed in him. 

Teddy loved to sit with Fred, his legs wrapped around him when he sat on his lap on the couch, or outside on the porch railing when they’d smoke when they couldn’t sleep. When they’d kissed on the kid’s playground that was right next to the high school, or how they held hands in the halls. He loved how he didn’t have to get drunk to be with Fred anymore-He was always an arm's length away. 

Teddy liked how his mom stopped just scolding him after the fact, and started making rules again. How she started talking to him, just to find out how his day went or what he was doing that night. How she never commented on he and Fred, and how she didn’t let anyone else do so either. 

Teddy loved how his little sister, June, loved Fred and Fred loved her and they could spend hours outside making daisy chains or having tea. He didn’t get bored of ‘family’. Fred was having fun being normal, helping Teddy’s mother cook dinner and helping clean the house. 

They went to school, did their homework at the dining room table so they could ask for help when they needed it. When Teddy stayed with his father across Palo Alto every other weekend Fred went with him, his mother having explained everything. 

Fred kept Teddy calm, the panic attacks he had been having calming with Fred’s arms around his shoulders. He slept better when Fred was beside him, and he even found it easier to concentrate in school knowing that he wouldn’t have to choose school or Fred. 

Everything was getting better, things were getting better. They were getting better. 

\----------------------------

The stars shone above their heads, the fire leaving flickering shadows across the families face as they sat around it. They were out in the yard, Teddy leaning against his mother as they roasted their marshmallows. His little sister was fast asleep in Fred’s lap, Fred was laughing at something his mom had said. The scar above his eye was fading, and he held himself like he knew who he was. 

Teddy was perfectly content in that moment, with his whole family.

**Author's Note:**

> Please review! Also, you can find me at Paloaltomovie2013.tumblr.com :)


End file.
